The present invention relates to a vehicle battery pack assembly, and more particularly to the mounting of a fan assembly that cools the battery pack.
In vehicles that employ batteries for propulsion, such as for example, hybrid electric or battery electric vehicles, the batteries are often located behind the rear seats in a rear cargo area. The battery system may include a cooling fan assembly that creates a cooling flow inside the battery to maintain the desired battery temperature. While it may be desirable from a packaging and cooling efficiency standpoint to locate the cooling fan assembly right next to the batteries, it is not desirable to have the fan assembly pushed into the batteries during a vehicle impact event.
Accordingly, some have mounted the cooling fan motor and that portion of the cooling fan assembly offset laterally to the side of the batteries. In this way, in a vehicle rear impact event, the fan motor likely will not be pushed into the batteries. Others have mounted the cooling fan motor and that portion of the cooling fan assembly offset above the batteries, again reducing the chances that the fan motor is pushed into the batteries during a vehicle rear impact event. However, for some vehicles, it may be difficult due to packaging constraints or possibly less efficient for cooling to locate the cooling fan assembly offset from the batteries.